Simon Keenlyside to appear at Wigmore Hall

Simon Keenlyside as Golaud
Photo: Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Michael Pöhn

Fan favorite barihunk Simon Keenlyside will appear at Wigmore Hall on July 26th joined by five British jazz musicians.

Keenlyside will sing selections from American jazz and light opera/musicals, including pieces by Kurt Weill, Emmerich Kálmán, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, Cole Porter and Billy Strayhorn. Tickets are available online.  

Earlier this year Keenlyside was knighted by HRH The Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace for his "services to music." He won a Grammy Award for his recording of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and in 2011 was named Musical America's Vocalist of the Year.

Simon Keenlyside as Golaud
Photo: Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Michael Pöhn

In 2016, he underwent thyroid surgery, which kept him offstage for 10 more months.

Upcoming opera performances include Rodrigo in Verdi's Don Carlo at the Vienna State Opera, Giorgio Germont in Verdi's La traviata at the Bavarian State Opera and Goulaud in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande at the Hamburg State Opera.

Zachary Gordin running the show and putting on a show at Festival Opera

Zachary Gordin

Barihunk Zachary Gordin has worn many hats in his operatic career, from teacher, coach, manager and, of course, singer. His latest endeavor will be as Artistic Director of Festival Opera in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The company was founded in 1991 by Arizona Opera co-founder Dr. Theodore Weis and has had a rich and occasionally rocky history, including the West Coast premiere of Ned Rorem's Our Town and a highly acclaimed Star Wars-themed production of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio.

Gordin's first season will include a fully staged production of Carlisle Floyd's American masterpiece Susannah. The opera will feature soprano Shana Blake Hill in the title role, tenor Alex Boyer as Sam, baritone Philip Skinner as Reverend Olin Blitch and baritone Eugene Brancoveanu as Elder McLean. Gordin has even imported German bass-baritone Malte Roesner for the role of Elder Ott. Roesner made his acclaimed 2017 American debut down the road with West Edge Opera in Vicente Martin y Soler's The Chastity Tree. This will be Roesner's debut with the company.

Malte Roesner

Gordin will kick off the season himself in a recital with his frequent collaborator Brian Nies on May 28. The duo will perform Schumann’s Dichterliebe, along with songs by Jake Heggie, Reynaldo Hahn, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. The two released an album of Hahn songs in 2017 called “Amour sans ailes,” which was was named Best Lieder Recording of 2017 by Voix des Arts.

Gordin previously performed with the company as Angelotti in Puccini's Tosca, Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen,  Enrico in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Germont in Verdi's La traviata and Joseph De Rocher in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking.

Tickets for the recital and Susannah are available ONLINE.

Enjoy barihunk Iosu Yeregui with some Catalan cuisine

Iosu Yeregui

Barihunks calendar model Iosu Yeregui will perform a recital at Sopar Líric al 7 Portes in Barcelona. Attendees can enjoy dinner as well as an evening of the Basque bass-barihunk singing music from Porpora, Handel, Mozart, Bellini, Verdi and Puccini.

The restaurant has been a fixture in Barcelona for 175 years. Tickets are 45€ and the the restaurant will be serving traditional Catalan cuisine including croquettes of meat, salted cod, bite sized ham sandwiches, creamed turnips and potatoes with capers.

Tickets are available at reserves@7portes.com.

Iosu Yeregui sings Handel's "Leave me":

You can enjoy Iosy Yeregui in some sexy poses along with 17 other barihunks from across the globe in our new charity calendar. Click the Lulu button below to order before the holiday rush. All proceeds will go to benefit baritone and bass projects, scholarships and singing competition awards. 

Duncan Rock (left) and Iosu Yeregui (right)

Romain Dayez gets biblical and whimsical

Romain Dayez (photo © Pierre Bongert)

Barihunks calendar model Romain Dayez a few interesting performances coming up on his calendar. On November 28 and 29, he'll perform in Handel's Judas Maccabaues at the Collège Don Bosco in Brussels, Belgium with the vocal ensemble Cantus Firmus and the Brussels Chamber Orchestra.

Gerald Finley sings "Arm, arm ye brave" from Judas Maccabeaus:

From December 2-February 2, he plays the King in Graciane Finzi's new opera Peau D’âne, based on an incestuous fairy tale by 17^th century author Charles Perrault. Performances will be at the Espace Paris-Plaine, Carrè Belle-feuille in Boulogne-Billancourt and the Théâtre de la Lanterne in Rambouillet

In the opera, the king promises his dying wife only to remarry a woman as beautiful as herself. He decides that the only woman who can meet that standard is his daughter, Horrified, the daughter seek the advice of her fairy godmother, who tells her to create marital demands so extreme that they can't be met. She demands that she be given three dresses made of immaterial materials. The first is to be made of the “sky” and should be as light and airy as the clouds. The second is to be made of “moonbeams” and should reflect the same lyrical intensity as the moon at night. The third, and last, is to be made of “sunlight” and should be as blinding and warm as the sun above. The opera also involved a donkey that poops gold and a prince who saves the day.

On January 17, he'll join accompanist Charles Mignot for a recital of music by Fauré, Franck, Chausson, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Caplet, Boulanger and Poulenc. The performance will be at the Musée des Instruments de Musique and tickets will be available at the door.

You can enjoy Romain Dayez in the 2016 Barihunks calendar along with 17 more of opera's hottest men. You can order before the holiday rush HERE. Proceeds will fund a song prize for baritones/basses, as well as commissions for new music.

Romain Dayez and Jason Duika

You can also enjoy the Marco Vassalli calendar by clicking HERE. Proceeds from the sale will go to fund his US debut in January. 

 

Hunkentenor Jonathan Blalock & Bass-Barihunk Aaron Sorensen receive latest Barihunks Calendar Grant

Aaron Sorensen and Jonathan Blalock

Our latest grantees from the proceeds of our 2014 Barihunks Charity Calendar may be a surprise to some people. We had a lot of interesting requests for the second grant, but none struck us as original as a concert featuring a tenor and a bass! That's what hunkentenor Jonathan Blalock and bass-barihunk Aaron Sorensen suggested and we loved the idea immediately.

We can't think of many times that we've ever seen that combination in a concert hall and we wanted to help make it happen. Although a place and time has not been set of this date, the discussion around the program is quite intriguing. We also believe that the recital will be paired with some other big announcements related to the two singers. Both singers are clearly on the cusp of major careers and theaters are taking notice.

Blalock as Lazaro in Before Night Falls, Photo by Ellen Appel.

Blalock recently premiered the role of Paul in Greg Spear's critically acclaimed opera Paul's Case with Urban Arias. He is reprising the role from January 8-13 with the Prototype Festival in New York. Barihunk Keith Phares is also reprising the role of Paul's father. The opera is based on the famous short story by Willa Cather. He first caught our eye with two stunning performances at the Fort Worth Opera Festival, appearing shirtless in both Jorge Martin's Before Night Falls and Philip Glass' Hydrogen Jukebox. Last season, he was one of the many gifted young artists at the Santa Fe Opera.

We also first spotted Aaron Sorensen at the Fort Worth Opera where he appeared as Benoit and Alcindoro in La Boheme, as well as a hilarious turn as the Wigmaker in Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. Sorensen is a true bass, which is a rarity in opera these days. We have a feeling that we'll be watching this amazing talent grow into a great Verdi/Wagner bass as his career advances.

The Nebraska native honed his craft at Yale Opera Program and has gone on to sing Masetto in
Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Father Trulove in Stravinky’s The Rake’s Progress at the Wolf Trap Opera, Zuniga in Bizet's Carmen and Angelotti in Puccini's Tosca at the Glimmerglass Opera Festival, and Britten's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Tosca, and The
Rake’s Progress with Des Moines Metro Opera.

He'll be returning to the Fort Worth Opera Festival next season as the French General in Kevin Puts' Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night.

More great photos of Ben Connor (and a recital)

Ben Connor (all photos by Lukas Beck)

We had to share these pictures of Australian barihunk Ben Connor, who originally created quite a sensation on this site when he appeared in Puccini's La boheme in his skivvies. Connor has been a member of the young artist program at the Theater an der Wien, where in addition to La boheme, he performed in Rossini's La cambiale de matrimonio, the opening night concert and was featured in his own recital. These photos are by the Lukas Beck and are part of a series of the entire young artist program.

Recital excerpts from Ben Connor on Vimeo.

Connor has been on the opera world's radar for some time, having won the Art Song Prize of the Australian National Eisteddfod and the Welse Singing Competition, as well as a grant from the Australian Britain Society, which brought him to Europe. After entering the young artist program he immediately was singled out as a star performer, with his beautiful lyric baritone and natural acting style.

You can hear Ben Connor live on October 1st in a recital with accompanist Tomasz Kamieniak at the Kammeroper in Vienna. In November, he will be starring as Dandini in the company's production of Rossini's La cenerentola.

Randal Turner performs "Don Juan at 40"

American composer Julia Schwartz wrote the 10-minute scene "Don Juan at 40" for barihunk Randal Turner, who debuted the piece at his West Coast recital debut in December 2010. Until now, the piece was only viewable on the commercial DVD, but it's now available on the composer's YouTube site. The text is by Ron Butlin, the great Scottish poet, novelist, short-story writer, librettist, playwright, and journalist.

The concert also includes a set of Walt Whitman songs by Clint Borzoni, which were written for Turner, as well.

We should also mention that Randal Turner is featured in the promotional video for Lucy Liu's new TV show on CBS, "Elementary." He appears around the 3:26 mark. 

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Barihunk Discount for Sidney Outlaw Recital

Sidney Outlaw

If you haven't heard Sidney Outlaw perform yet, do we have a deal for you. We attended his recital in San Francisco and it was one of the most amazing performances by a young artist that we'd seen in some time. If you're in New York this weekend, you can hear him as part of the Lotte Lehmann Foundation Recital series. Tickets are $15, but if you mention Barihunks, you'll get the student/senior rate of $10. Trust us, this is a talent that you won't want to miss.

Outlaw will be joined by soprano Adrienne Danrich and accompanist Thomas Bagwell on Sunday, May 20, 2012 at 3:00pm at Christ & St. Stephen's Church, 120 West 69th Street in New York City.  The program will feature music by Brahms, Duparc, Rachmaninov and a rare performance of Francis Poulenc's La Dame de Monte Carlo.

The North Carolina native was the 2010 Grand Prize winner of the Concurso Internacional de Canto Montserrat Caballé and recently made his debut with the English National Opera as Rambo in John Adams’s Death of Klinghoffer. He was a member of the Merola Opera Program in San Francisco where he stole the show as Dr.Dulcamara in L’elisir d’amore.

Outlaw’s other awards include Second Prize in the 2011 Gerda Lissner Foundation Awards, national semi-finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, semi-finalist in the Francisco Viñas International Singing Competition, finalist for both the Concours International Musical de Montréal and the George London Competition, and grand prize at the Florida Grand Opera/YPO Vocal Competition. Mr. Outlaw holds a master’s degree in vocal performance from The Juilliard School and is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Upcoming engagements include Telemann’s Orpheus with New York City Opera and the role of Don Giovanni at Aix-en-Provence.

You can listen to Sidney Outlaw HERE. 

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Watch the Complete Michael Kelly Recital

Michael Kelly

In December of last year barihunk Michael Kelly performed a recital with accompanist Jessica Chow at the Trinity Wall Street Church in New York. One of our readers alerted us that the entire recital is available on the church's website (and now on Barihunks). Don't miss a chance to watch this captivating and talented young singer!

Kelly has performed with Opernhaus Zurich, Chicago Opera Theatre, Gotham Chamber Opera, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Tanglewood Music Center, and has performed in recital in New York, Houston, Chicago, Switzerland, Germany, France, and Corsica. He holds a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School.

This evening, Kelly wrapped singing the role of Eric Satie's "Socrates" for the Mark Morris Dance Company at the Rose Theater as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival. You can read the New York Times review HERE. For those of you who missed this recital, he will be performing again at Merkin Hall in New York City on October 24. The 2011 winner of the "Joy In Singing Award," will perform works by Schubert, Poulenc, Vaughan Williams, and Bolcom, and introduce a new cycle written for him by Ben Moore. Jonathan Ware will accompany him at the piano. Click HERE for tickets.



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An Interview with Alexander Tsymbalyuk

There are still tickets remaining for Alexander Tsymbalyuk's London recital on June 2. Click HERE for tickets. Even if you can't make the recital, here is an interview with the gifted young barihunk from the Rosenblatt Recital website.

When did you realise you wanted a career in music?
At birth my grandmother predicted that I would become a composer as whenever music played I would sit still and listen. When I turned four my uncle gave me a piano, which I studied for 7 years, then I went on to study drums and began singing at the age of 20.
What one thing that has happened in your life has made the biggest impact on who you are today?
I cannot identify a specific event as there are many things that made me the person I am today but mostly it was people like my family, teachers, the audience, my agency... my motto is that you have to live, love and enjoy. I try to be positive and always be ready to give somebody a smile: what goes around comes around.
Do you have a favourite opera?
I like all opera depending on my mood - today it's Boris Godunov, tomorrow a Verdi opera and next week Rossini. It's impossible to give a definitive answer.
What was the last book you read?
Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor, as this was the last major new production I performed in Hamburg.
What three items would you take to a desert island?
I would take a stack of books, a few people to sing to, and wings - to fly away if I am bored of the Island.
What advice would you give to any aspiring singers?
Hang in there! Focus on the big goal, be patient, optimistic and always be friendly.
How would you like your career to develop in the future?
I would like to continue to study and hope more people are touched by my singing. I would like to expand my repertoire, bring different colours to my voice, but the main thing is that I am happy with what I am doing.
Which of your favourite songs to perform could you not live without?
Очи чёрные, (Ochi chyornye; Black Eyes) Russian folk song.
In which country would you most like to perform?
England (laughs).
The best advice anyone has ever given you?
Hang on in there! Keep going!
Highlight of your career so far?
Winning the “The XIII International Tchaikovsky Competition” Moscow (2007)

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See David Krohn for FREE (but with his shirt on)

For those of you in the New York area, you can go see barihunk David Krohn for free at his Julliard recital concert. It will take place on November 17 in Julliard's Paul Hall at 8 PM.

He'll be performing Handel's "Dalla Guerra Amorosa", Schubert's "3 Gesänge des Harfners" and Ravel's "Histoires Naturelles."

Krohn has been featured on Barihunks three times before and he's building quite a following as he launches his career.

YOU CAN CONTACT THIS SITE AT barihunks@gmail.com

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